Wednesday, October 2, 2013

How to Measure a Social Media Specialist

This opinion, although backed by research and
facts, may step on some toes. In our information overload age, analytics and
measurements often cause professionals’ gazes to glaze over while
reading them, but they matter. My apologies in advance to anyone who finds
offense. Even in the D.I.Y. world, there are qualifications for presenting as
an expert—do you want to pay for less?

When we, as students, would attempt to call my Tai
Chi instructor “Master”, he quoted his own Master, “How much Kung Fu do you
have when you have ten years of Kung Fu? A little Kung Fu.” Or if you prefer,
allow me to quote the wisdom of the 70s Hostess jingle: It takes a while to eat
a Chocodile.

Although we are addressing a recent media, it
takes a while to become a (real) social media professional. Unfortunately, some
social media speakers being paid big bucks don’t pass muster or meet minimum
requirements for the title.

“Life as a top executive of any large company is a
tough job. It’s especially tough for CMOs [Chief Marketing Officers] given the
high turnover rate. From my experience, having a large following and creating a
stronger social network of influential people around you – means you become
nearly unemployment proof. It also means you have the ability to influence
employees, partners, suppliers and customers directly by using the same
platforms and tools that they use every day. It means you can receive instant,
personal feedback without having to wait for the data analysts to tell you
their interpretation of the situation. It’s the dream situation for a marketer,
and most of the marketing leaders are not doing it.”

You can buy all of the followers you like, force
yourself on thousands of Facebook friends, and repost, share, retweet, act like
a total bot, re-blasting celebrity tweets in social media… and still lack the
engagement that makes you an influencer.

Think of social media as a museum or
newspaper that you curate. If you take the “me” out of social media (just say “no”
to selfies!) and focus on paying it forward, you will get somewhere. People
appreciate your appreciating them, retweeting them on twitter, sharing their photos
on Facebook, and liking their photos on Instagram.

Try this:

Beginning with Instagram and your
smart phone, add your original photos that are
interesting, if a little off-topic.

Share them to all available social
media from the app (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Foursquare) and
watch the love grow.

Curate your content. If a friend’s
friend happens upon your feed, timeline, or boards, she always will find
something interesting to peruse.

Even the most interesting and expensive exhibit at
the zoo captivates its audience for less than 60 seconds, so get to the point.
You are branding yourself by entertaining and helping to brand businesses owned
by those in your audience. Be generous and creative. Your curated collection
may be a limited engagement, in that you hide or delete some of your content
that does not receive a strong response after 24 hours. Your most popular
content becomes your permanent content.

Watch your Google Analytics to learn where your
clicks are coming from, because friends and followers leaving social media platforms
to find your website, blog, or landing page counts as engagement on a whole new
level. Hooray! They clicked through to visit your wares, raising your site
traffic and conversions numbers (sales) over time.

Getting Engaged

As I travel through my social media connections, followers’
avatars become their identities in my brain. Their content tells me what they
are up to, whether selling vintage jewelry, or flirting with politically-ranting
followers.

I tend to follow Creatives (writers, artists,
photographers, musicians, and other entrepreneurs), so don’t engage in
political discussions, but share lots of Etsy and Amazon links to the products
of my followers. In turn, they tell the world about mine.

The key is that we become friendly with one
another, familiar with each other. Sometimes my friends send me photos of
mermaids they think I’ll like. That’s really thoughtful, and tells me they know
me pretty well! Likewise, if I see a beautiful Hibiscus bloom in my backyard, I
know the photo of it will receive a string of <3’s from particular tropical
followers on Instagram.

Curate your content, personalizing it for your audience.
That’s what marketing and branding is all about. This engagement with your
followers connects a good feeling, a familiar feeling, to you and your brand.

Formulaic vs. Natural Flow

Is there anything that stinks worse than spending hours
as a grade-schooler writing and editing a letter to your favorite author, or
the US President, only to receive a boiler-plate letter in response with the famous
person’s signature stamped at the bottom by an intern?

When Marguerite Henry
typed and signed a response to me personally, using a typewriter with a quirky “r”,
it became a treasure! Not only did I get an “A” on my report, but I was
encouraged in my own writing to be human, honest, and find my own voice. The
authenticity of Ms. Henry’s response to a little girl writer who loved horses,
and the Misty of Chincoteague series most of all, informed my approach to
writing ever after.

It’s called Influence for a reason.

You can
only influence people who respect you enough to engage with you. If you set off
their cornball meter, they will ignore you or use you, but they will not engage
with you or send you thoughtful photos of mermaids.

Brand yourself as a real
human being, but stay above the fray and be positive (social media is not the
venue for drama about how your teenager stayed out all night).

Think about how you turn to positive people again
and again because of the way the engagement makes you feel (see Maya Angelou’s
poem on the topic).

Feed the Feels: Feel out your
followers for positive ways to influence them to love you, thereby loving your
brand.

Share the <3: It starts with
engaging them on their level, sharing what you know they’ll love and, when
relevant, generously sharing their brands with your followers.

RT “you”: Spot check your timeline and
feeds for selfies, self-promotion, and un-liked
content – cull it down to about 10%. Tweets that mention “you” get retweeted the
most!

Klout comic by xkcd via my 18-year-old son, who does not like social media because it has nothing to do with Reddit, gaming, or coding. Incidentally, Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian’s Klout score is 86.

I have worn the cone of shame for hundreds of lost
marketing dollars at the hands of a faux-cial media specialist. I’m not bitter, but better with
my D.I.Y. Social Media, for which I am paid a handsome $99 fee for individual
hand-holding during guided social media setups. I would do it
for free but for the hand-holding part, which can last up to three hours. Note:
Show-me works best in person with generations older than Millennials.